Nats’ housing policy fails to keep pace with population growth – Labour Party

Auckland got less than half the new houses it needed in the past year to keep up with record population growth, says Labour’s Housing spokesperson Phil Twyford.

“Statistics New Zealand building consent data released today confirms the shortage of housing in Auckland is worsening.

“Auckland needed 16,000 houses last year. It got just 7,000. That is a massive shortfall on top of the existing shortage of housing in the city.

“While Statistics New Zealand reports 10,000 houses were consented in Auckland last year, Auckland Council has stated that resulted in only 7,000 new houses being built. You can’t sleep in a building consent.

“Based on the average of 2.7 people per house, Auckland needed 13,000 more houses just for the net immigration of 36,000 it received last year, and more than 16,000 new houses for its total population growth of 45,000.

“It’s not fair to existing Aucklanders or new immigrants to continue to have increasing immigration into the city if National’s not going to build the houses and other infrastructure people need.

“National’s utter failure to match housing supply and demand is the root of the housing crisis. It’s forcing up house prices, it’s forcing up rents, it’s leading to over-crowding, and, ultimately, it’s putting families in cars and garages.

“Labour will fix the housing shortage by building affordable homes for first homebuyers to purchase, and thousands more state houses. At the same time, we will ease the strain on our housing and infrastructure by reducing immigration by tens of thousands a year.

“We will always welcome new immigrants to New Zealand; we just need to take a breather while we catch up on the housing and infrastructure deficit National has created,” says Phil Twyford.